Morpeth Town’s Academy has a date with destiny tomorrow when they travel to the Hawthorns, home of West Bromwich Albion, for a cup final to remember.
The Highwaymen’s under-19 side will take on a Crystal Palace youth squad with the National Football Youth League Trophy on the line.
After beating Durham, Huddersfield Town, Macclesfield, Stoke City, and Barnsley on the way to Wednesday’s showpiece occasion, our junior side has already done the club proud.
“As staff, we’re delighted for the lads that get to be involved in the squad in the final and disappointed for the ones that can’t be but to get into a national final being played in a football league ground is a great achievement for everyone involved and vindicates the processes we’ve put in place,” said Academy Head of Sports Sciences and Medicine at Morpeth Town Steven Shaw.
“Last year, when we started the academy all our lads were pretty much all U17’s playing in U19 football and we were taking a few heavy defeats.
“We promised them by the time they were finishing as U18’s that we’d have a lot playing regular senior football and competing to win things at this level and here we are.
“We could, in my opinion, have qualified for a couple more cup finals and probably won a league or two this year if we’d just ran with the same groups of 16 all season and, yes, we’d have a few trophies to show off.
“But we probably wouldn’t have two lads with international honours through playing in the ECFA competitions, three or four being in and around the first team, over 20 lads being paid to play senior football and 40 odd others playing regular senior or boys club football and enjoying it – that’s more important to us.”
Focusing on the final itself, it is something of a step into the unknown for the squad.
“The reality is we don’t know, we’re playing Crystal Palace in the final and they aren’t in our area, obviously, so we’ll go into it blind really,” Shaw continued.
“We’ve had some tight games in the competition and to be fair a few mismatches but any team in the final of a national competition is going to be a good side.
“We’re possibly an underdog physically, it’s an U19 competition and we’re only just finishing our second year so our squad is mostly U18’s with some first years pushing to be in the squad.
“We do have four U19’s that will be pushing to be involved but it’s no guarantee, Crystal Palace could be the same in fairness, we don’t know, but they could also be 16 massive 19-year-olds – we’ll see.
“Another factor for our squad selection with us which we’re massive on is their education.
“It’s the cornerstone of the Academy and anyone that isn’t up to date with their college work won’t be involved no matter how good they are.
“Hopefully all the lads continue to buy into that and work hard on and off the pitch to give themselves a chance of being in the squad.”
Everyone at the club would like to wish the squad they very best of luck tomorrow and hope they enjoy the day.
